[lazide]

Like the court system being adversarial, it’s that way because it’s the only thing that scales, for a number of reasons. The longer a company can avoid it/bigger they can be without it, the better everything is. At some point however, it’s inevitable.

To answer your second question, because the ones who leave are often the ones with the most options and lowest risk to themselves if they are unemployed, which highly correlates with those who are the ‘best’ (in most hiring managers minds).

So it’s pretty common for all the ‘high performers’ to bail (happens anyway, but to a lesser extent on it’s own the moment ‘growth’ isn’t the first thing on peoples minds), and the folks left behind to be those that don’t feel comfortable finding another position.

Either because they have a mortgage hanging over their heads, or don’t feel confident in their skills, or are preoccupied with other responsibilities (kids, older parents, etc) and have less free time/are less interested in doing extra hours, or just hate interviewing, etc.

It’s basically the equivalent of a hot/pretty boyfriend or girlfriend. They are able to find other options easier, so tend to be the first to bounce if they stop getting what they want.

If you’re a manager, that’s obviously not great. Especially if you’re shallow.

[naasking]

> To answer your second question, because the ones who leave are often the ones with the most options and lowest risk to themselves if they are unemployed, which highly correlates with those who are the ‘best’.

Maybe, but some of these "best" people might just leave after a round of layoffs anyway right? And now you're even more short-staffed than you wanted to be.

[lazide]

Yup!

Though the issue they are trying to solve appears to be having too many staff (overall).

Understaffing is almost always a local/team level concern.

As long as nothing important implodes after the cuts, it’s working as intended from their perspective.

The line and middle managers are the ones who always get really screwed in these situations, as they’re the ones responsible for figuring out how to keep who they need and keep things running (and growing!) while having the rug pulled out from under them staffing wise (and probably in other ways too).

This is when you figure out what (if any) power they have, how well they can prioritize, and what their personal character really is.

Will they level with people, cut things that don’t matter (as much), even if it’s a hard decision, give people flexibility where it matters, go up to bat for folks who it’s important that be done?

Or will they deflect, throw people under the bus to avoid making hard calls, and emotionally manipulate who’s left to keep things afloat while burning them out and underpaying them?